First Posted: 2/18/2015
PITTSTON — City council approved the motion to authorize a loan of $55,000 to the Pittston Redevelopment Authority for land acquisition purposes.
“The concept is there are about seven or eight properties near the southern end of town that are residential that are blighted,” said Joe Chacke, executive director of the Pittston Redevelopment Authority. “We’ve acquired four or five of them and we’re going to seek a developer to build a business in that area.”
City manager Joseph Moskovitz added that this loan would acquire the final properties needed to help complete the project, but did not specify when that might be.
Chacke said there are no business ideas in mind to be built at that area.
Council also approved the Development Agreement between the City of Pittston and Johnson Control Inc. for facility improvements in which the municipality will pay $2 million to Johnson Control, Inc. for city hall renovations.
Moskovitz said the municipality is under an Energy Savings Contract, or ESC, with Johnson Control, Inc., which means renovation projects will be completed by Johnson Control, Inc. exclusively. Also, the contract states 25-30 percent of monies paid for project work will be saved in monthly utilities, as the work must make the building more energy efficient.
Moskovitz said the Develpment Agreement was just a step forward in the process and that more steps will be taken in the future, saying he hopes by June everything will begin.
Other approvements made in the council meeting include:
• The closing of Tomato Festival Drive to Market Street from 8 a.m. Friday, March 6 until a time unannounced on Sunday, March 8 for the Second Annual Pittston Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.
• The payment of $65,995.02 to Berger Construction out of Hazleton for the Pittston Memorial Library Construction Project which is the library expansion project that Moskovitz said “is about 50 percent completed.”
• Authorize a four-year lease purchase of a 2015 Ford Escape for the City Code Enforcement Bureau from KME Kovatch out of Nesquehoning for $23,474.16 in which the payment of $6,500 will be made every year for those four years.
• Re-appoint the following individuals to the City Parking Authority: James Norris, James Deice and Salvatore Licata.
• Re-appoint the following individuals to the Pittston Redevelopment Authority: Charles Barone and Michael Lombardo.
• Re-appoint the following individuals to the Pittston Planning Commission: Philip Gristina and William Gladish.
• Authorize the early buyout of the contract of the City’s Telephone Communication Lease from TAMCO for $11,579.80 to facilitate the purchase of the City’s Nortel Network telephone system.
The next counil meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18 at the city hall building on 35 Broad St.
